by Teresa Hill
"Would you like to come inside?" She would never have invited a stranger into her apartment in Connecticut, but this wasn't Connecticut, and he wasn't exactly a stranger.
"Yes, thank you."
As she closed the door she realized there was no other car in the driveway. He must have walked here before the rain started, and she wondered if he was a neighbor.
He set the candle on a small table at the bottom of the stairs, took off his obviously expensive and now very wet raincoat, and hung it over the banister. He was wearing a beautifully tailored suit in a rich brown color, the jacket showing off the wide expanse of his shoulders. He ran a hand through his hair, which was short and dark and wet, then stared at her once again.
"Sorry," he said. "I can't get over how much you look like your sister."
Allie found herself absurdly pleased by the idea, and she liked knowing someone still remembered Megan. Sometimes it had seemed she was the only one. Her mother hadn't so much as mentioned Megan's name in years, and Allie had learned not to, either, as she'd learned not to ask about so many things over the years.
She let the man take his time looking at her as she studied him. He was in his mid-thirties. Tall, trim, with the build of an athlete and an air of self-assurance and power. Money, too. It was evident in the cut and quality of the suit. He looked like a man used to having the best, to getting his way.
A second later, he turned his head a bit, and the light hit his face at just the right angle. Allie saw something there, something she recognized. The shape of his eyes, maybe the hint of gold in the dark green irises or the shape of his lips when they stretched into the barest hint of a smile.
"You used to live next door," she said.
"Still do."
"Stephen Whittaker?"
He nodded. "I'm surprised you remember."
"I'm surprised now that I forgot," Allie said. "Megan talked about you nonstop from as far back as I can remember. She watched from the window of my bedroom when you went out on your first date. Then she cried for days."
He looked surprised, then a bit embarrassed. "Megan was a sweet kid."
Allie nodded. Stephen, if she remembered correctly, had been a few years older than Megan. Allie wondered if he'd always viewed her sister as nothing but a sweet kid, if there had ever been anything more between them.
Allie's memories of the time she'd spent here had always been vague, but strangely, the closer she tried to get to her memories of that summer Megan ran away, the more difficult it was to recall anything at all. Was it merely the fact that she'd been so young? Or something else entirely that made it difficult to remember those last days with her sister?
Allie couldn't say. But Stephen would have been in high school or college. He'd always lived next door to her family. His mother did volunteer work at her parents' church, and his father was a judge. Surely she could trust him.
Impulsively, Allie said, "Someone was kind enough to leave me a casserole for dinner. I think it had enough time to heat before the power went out. I also made a pot of fresh coffee. Would you care to stay for dinner?"
"Coffee and a hot meal? In the middle of one of these storms? That's an offer I couldn't possibly refuse."
By the time she served the casserole, Stephen was sitting at the small table by the window in the kitchen, the flames of a half dozen candles dancing around the room. Outside, the thunder and the wind had subsided, but the rain still fell heavily, the wetness glistening against the windowpanes, the atmosphere suddenly intimate.
They ate hungrily. Stephen had her laughing as he came up with news of people and places she remembered. The food was warm and settled her stomach. She'd stopped shaking, was more relaxed than she'd been in weeks.
"I don't remember the last time I enjoyed a meal more," she said.
"Then the man in your life ought to be ashamed of himself."
He grinned as he said it, and there was power in the easy smile that rested so naturally on his lips, in the richness of his voice, the warmth in his tone, the mere hint of flirtation in his sparkling eyes. She couldn't help but admire the elegance infused within every move he made. Everything about the way he carried himself spoke of unfaltering self-confidence and an assurance of his place in the world and with women.
He had to know women found him charming. All women, she suspected. Allie suspected he could get most anything he wanted, simply by asking. She wondered exactly what was happening to her. If it was some trick of the soft, pretty light or her gratitude in having someone to keep her company tonight. Whatever it was, she was enchanted with him. And she found it was easy to sit there in the dark with him. She wasn't nervous or tongue-tied, as she often was around men like him, because she knew him. It seemed she'd always known him, and that at the core, the man was not so different from the boy. He'd always been kind to her and Megan.
"So, who is this man who's treating you so shabbily?" Stephen asked.
"There is no man," she said quickly.
No one at all. The thought sobered her faster than anything could have. She was all alone, missing her mother, missing her sister and her father more than she had in years, and she still had to face the night alone in this house.
"So what brings you back?" Stephen asked. "The house?"
He'd poured her another cup of coffee when he'd gotten up to refill his own cup. Even lukewarm, it still tasted good. They'd pushed their plates to the side, and Stephen was leaning back in his chair now, watching her intently in a way she didn't think she'd ever feel comfortable being watched. And he would be gone soon. If she had questions, she had to get to them.
"My mother died recently," she said.
"I'm sorry." His hand slid across the table to hers in a simple, eloquent offer of comfort.
"Thank you," she said, unable to remember the last time a man held her hand. "I miss her. More than I had imagined I would." Particularly given the fact that she'd been angry at her mother for most of her life.
"It was just the two of you? Once you left here?"
"Yes."
"You must have been close..."
"I wouldn't say that." Allie sighed. "We just never quite got it right, you know? The mother /daughter thing. I always thought one day we would, but we didn't, and I let her rob me of all those years with my father."
"Rob you?"
"We both acted as if my father didn't even exist. She wouldn't talk about him, except to say that he didn't want us anymore," Allie explained. "Of course, I did what she wanted. I can't blame it all on my mother."
Janet Bennett painted herself as a frail, wounded woman her whole life, and Allie had always known her biggest responsibility was not to upset her mother. That included not starting any conversations about her father. Not asking any questions. Giving up on the letters, and never trying to see him.
"Your mother was all you had left, Allie. You were just a little girl. It's natural for you to want to please her."
"Maybe when I was nine. I'm twenty-four now."
"You grow up a certain way, expected to do certain things for your family, and it's hard to break those habits. It's hard to stop wanting to please them, hard to do what's right when you know it's going to hurt them."
"You do things like that for your family, too?"
"We all have our little eccentricities." He laughed humorlessly. "Eccentricities is a generous word for the things that go on in some families. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't handle your mother's problems as well as you think you should have. She was the one with the problem, Allie."
"No. It was my life. I let her do this to me."
"What did she do?"
"I think the current psychology term would be that she had control issues. She liked having me under her thumb. She was unhappy and the biggest hypochondriac I've ever known. Every time I managed to pull away just a little bit, she came up with these mysterious little problems, vague weaknesses and complaints. It was like she couldn't stand the idea that I might actually be happy. If
she wasn't happy, nobody was going to be happy. I feel guilty that I didn't stand up to her more often—especially when it came to my father. Even felt guilty because I didn't want to give up my job and my apartment to care for her in the end. I kept thinking she was willing to do anything to stop me from having a life of my own—even get cancer."
"Oh, Allie—"
"I know. It's crazy to even think it. Even crazier to miss her so much now that she's gone."
"You took care of her? All by yourself? In the end?"
"For a while. I quit my job. As an accountant," she said with what she thought was only a tad of distaste.
"You don't like being an accountant?"
"No." She grimaced. "It's so dull."
Stephen laughed.
"I suppose it was a good thing—that I quit, I mean. I should have figured it out long ago. I just... I've always been good with numbers, and accounting is so logical, so predictable. There was a time when that appealed to me." One place in her life where everything made sense. No surprises. No disappointments, just sheer logic. "But I've hated it. All except the last few months, at least."
"What was different about the last few months?"
"There was an organization in town that was very helpful to my mother and me when she was sick. A church group, sort of an umbrella organization that provided all sorts of services in town. They had a home health nurse who came once a week and a support group for women battling cancer. They brought my mother hot meals, before I moved back home, that sort of thing.
"They lived constantly on the verge of financial ruin, lived on sheer faith alone at times." She admired them for their nerve, their renegade do-gooder tactics. "I ended up doing volunteer work for them when I had the time, juggling funds as best I could to keep everything going."
"And you enjoyed that?"
"I did. Clients, to me, had always been a bunch of numbers in long rows on a computer screen. These people had records scattered from one end of the county to the other, so I ended up visiting a lot of the different sites where they provided services. Seeing all those people they helped... It made it all real. It made the job important in a way it never had been before."
"Sounds like you've found a career," Stephen said.
Allie nodded. "I think I did. If the group had any money, they would have hired me. They still may, once I go back."
"And if that doesn't work out?"
"I don't know. I'll probably look for another organization like that. I've found that I need the connection to people," Allie said, then forced herself to tell him what had really gotten to her about the whole organization. "They had a shelter for teenage runaways, a wonderful place. I ended up spending a lot of time there."
"Thinking of your sister?" Stephen guessed.
"Yes." Looking at the girls. Lost, scared girls who hid it all behind a wall of bravado a foot thick. Streetwise, old-before-their-time girls. She'd stared into all their faces and wanted to see a bit of her sister, wanted for one of them to make her understand why Megan ran away. "I couldn't help but think... Why couldn't Megan have found someplace like that, where she would have been safe? Maybe come home?"
"I remember when she was a little girl, she always seemed to be disappearing to one place or another," Stephen said. "I remember listening to your mother standing on the back porch calling to Megan, sometimes to the two of you to come inside. Threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you didn't show your faces."
Allie thought about it. She did remember that. "Megan always liked to run away and hide."
The minute she said it, Allie felt the muscles in her stomach tighten, felt her throat go tight as well. An image came to mind that she'd sooner forget. A young Megan in the backyard, crouched behind a tree, begging Allie to be quiet so they could stay hidden a while longer. Why did Megan love to run and hide? Why did she have to do it so well?
When Allie looked up, Stephen was watching her. She could have sworn he knew just what she was thinking. Did he, too, wonder why Megan ran away?
"I think this conversation's gotten too grim," he said, standing and walking across the room.
"I'm sorry." Allie couldn't believe she'd told him so much about her mother. She hadn't talked about any of these things to anyone.
"Don't be. I asked. And I'm willing to listen to anything you want to tell me, Allie." Leaning against the cabinets, his long legs stretched out in front of him, he look relaxed and perfectly at ease once again. "I just thought there must be something we could talk about that might make you smile again."
She found herself unexpectedly touched. That he'd listened. That he claimed to understand and even thought she should try to forgive herself. And that, as he claimed, he simply cared about making her smile.
"Let's talk about you," she suggested.
After all, it would be no hardship to listen to that low, soothing voice of his. Southern to the core, the sound of it was like an old familiar song, one she hadn't known she missed until she heard it again. She decided she'd been gone for too long when nothing but the sound of a man's voice could charm her so.
"What do you do?"
"I have a law degree I've never put to good use, much to my father's dismay," he said easily. "For the most part, I build things."
"You?" Allie doubted it. He certainly looked strong enough for manual labor, but that wasn't what he did. Not in a suit like that. Not with those hands. They were not the hands of a man who earned his living through hard labor.
"I rebuild things, actually. Old things. My company buys old buildings, restores them. Sometimes we keep them and manage them. Sometimes we sell them and buy more." Stephen took another drink of his coffee. "I find old buildings interesting. They have character, charm, I hate to see them torn down and replaced with modern ones that all look the same. I'd hate to see this town look like a cookie-cutter version of any other small town anywhere in America. Take this house, for instance. It's beautiful."
"I've missed it," she said, finding that she had and was happy to share this thing with him—a love of things old and solid and enduring. Did he see that in it, she wondered? That it had endured. That it had a history. That it no doubt held so many memories, so many secrets. She wondered if old buildings spoke to him, as she wished this one could speak to her.
"I haven't been inside in years," he said. "But from what I can see, the house seems to have held up well."
"I hope so. I haven't had a chance to explore yet, but Mr. Webster, the man who's handling my father's estate..."
"I've known him for years. He's a good man. You can trust him."
"Good. He said the place is basically sound."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"I'm not sure." Allie sighed. "What would you do with it?"
"If I inherited this house? I'd keep it. Sink a small fortune into restoring it."
Allie didn't have the luxury of that kind of money or time. The house was mortgage-free, but it had also appreciated over the years until it was, unfortunately, worth a great deal of money. Her mother hadn't done anything that might have minimized inheritance taxes, and she'd left hefty medical bills. Allie's father hadn't died a pauper, but between her mother's medical bills and the inheritance taxes Allie faced, she was a classic example of someone house-rich and pocket-poor.
She could not afford to keep the house. But she was intrigued by Stephen's ideas, enough to ask, "And then what? Once you'd restored it?"
"Live in it."
"All by yourself?" Or at least, she assumed he lived alone. He wore no ring, and he hadn't needed to tell anyone he wouldn't be home for dinner.
"Until I found someone to share it with me," he said. "I've watched it sit empty for years and imagined what I'd do with it, if I had the chance."
"You have an amazing house next door," Allie said.
"No, my parents have an amazing house next door, and I'm in the embarrassing position of being thirty-five years old and still living in my parents' home."
He
said it with such an easy grace, she couldn't help but smile. "Cushy deal, huh? A great house? A cook? Free maid service?"
He nodded. "I'd be a fool to leave."
"Somehow I can't quite see you as a freeloader."
"Actually, I have a town house in Lexington. The city's been booming in the last ten years, and most of the work my company's doing is there. But my parents are on an extended trip, and they didn't want to leave the house empty. It's not exactly a hardship to be back here. I've enjoyed the past few months more than I realized I would. And I've spent a lot of time staring at this house. It's the kind of place a man keeps. A place where he stays."
Again, he'd touched a nerve. Allie found her throat suddenly too tight for her to even think about replying. She would love a place where she could stay, a place where she belonged. But that sense of belonging came not so much from the physical structure as from the people with whom one shared it, and by that definition, she'd never truly belonged anywhere. Except here, so long ago.
She wondered if Stephen could possibly feel that, too. That tugging of loneliness deep inside, that need to belong, not so much to a place but to someone. She would have never expected to find that in someone like him. She would have thought he was a man who wanted for nothing.
She looked up to find him watching her thoughtfully and tried to summon up a smile. He really had the most amazing smile. She wondered if he was consciously flirting with her or if he treated all women this way, if his natural inclination was to be polite and utterly disarming; wondered, too, if perhaps it wasn't a way of bringing people close to him but of keeping them away. A false kind of intimacy he used like a shield.
Did anyone ever truly get close to him, she wondered, and found herself wishing that she could. It was unsettling—to be so taken with him already, having spent so little time with him, to be so caught up in what she suspected was a flirtatious bit of nothing to him.
She was simply out of practice with the way things were between men and women. She'd been alone too long. The last few years had been busy, working her way through school, trying to take care of her mother. There hadn't been time for casual flirtations. Maybe that was why it felt so oddly sweet to be with him, why she was reluctant to let the moment end.
